The most amazing thing happened today. There I was, the first car stopped before the traffic light. It turned green. I blinked twice and waited. Nothing. That is, no one blew their horns. That is, no one blew their car horns, you pervert. Jakarta, there is hope for you after all.

Whoa, what a way to start the day. It was almost noon, but my day just started, indeed. If anything, it started early. You know, the DVD player in my parents' family room is like Citi -- bank, that is, not Nurhaliza, not Chitty Bang Bang -- it never sleeps. I usually open my eyes well after noon and shut them at around four in the morning. My brother, on the other hand, usually leaves his bed well after midnight and goes to it at two or three in the afternoon. When either of us is up, it's DVD time.

BTW, I would like to recommend Entourage. Very entertaining. Go watch it if you haven't.

I'm always of the opinion, if you can drive in Jakarta, you can drive just about anywhere else on the planet. Well, except maybe on an NBA court. They say that to realize the value of one second, one should ask a person who has just avoided an accident? As it turns out, one can also ask any driver on Jakarta roads. Note how everyone zig-zags just to shave a few seconds off their trip time -- Lewis Hamilton, beware. Who says Indonesians are not competitive by nature?

"Honey, I'm home. Guess what, I just broke our family record by 5 seconds! Oh yeah, baby, who's your daddy now, huh?! Just for the record, the time to beat now is one hour fifty-five minutes and forty-two seconds. Didn't think it could be done, now, did you?

"I could've made it inside one hour fifty-five minutes and forty seconds, you know, if only our Pak Ogah at that Pulo Mas U-turn had done his job properly. That bugger."

What's surreal is how, in spite of the zig-zagging strategy employed by just about everyone, with or without a valid driver's license, the megacity's population keeps on growing. Either you've got to give it to our road users for their dexterity or the Jakartans have the regeneration ability this side of Claire Bennett.

As unbelievable as it is, regeneration may not be the only power our road users possess. Forget Jean Grey and Sue Storm, observe the daily Jakarta traffic and you'll see average people cross the seemingly uncrossable street by raising their hands, palms opened -- cars and motorcycles duly stop in their tracks, just as they're about to run over the persons. A fact recently noted by a guy from New Zealand we met a few hours ago.

Alas, the power comes with the territory. It will not work in other country. Try to pull a Psimon on a busy street of Singapore or New York; chances are you'll end up a dead salmon instead. Kinda like Kal-El and his yellow sun. So please, exercise your crossing power with care.

And what about our obsession with precision? Try parking your car with the help of a parking man -- our New Zealander's terminology. More often than not, he'll guide you with inch perfection:

"Go on, go on. More. More. More. A bit more."

"But my car is a Yaris. What difference would a few inches make?"

"Closer. Closer."

"Come on. I'm parked next to a Volvo S90 and a Merc C215. I'm practically invisible here."

"More. More. More."

"Dude!"

"More. Mo... Stop! Look what you've done. I said stop, weren't you listening? I'm your muthafishin' parking man for fishsake!"

"It's fine, just a scratch. And a dent the size of a tennis shoe to boot."

"No, no, my reputation as a parking man is at stake here. Move forward a quarter of an inch. Move. Move."

"All right, all right, geez. There."

"Good. Now, you're three inches too far to the left. So if you don't mind, sir..."

You know Harry Potter's Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place? How Muggles only see Number Eleven and Number Thirteen, completely oblivious to the house in the middle? Well, that's nothing compared to the Jakartan parking men. With what can only be described as magical powers, they can keep on adding row after row of parked cars, expanded all the way to the street. The rest of the road users aren't even aware that the width of the road has shrunk by one or two cars. They just glide by -- or in most cases, bumper-to-bumper by -- subconsciously noting how the traffic has suddenly condensed, yet can't for the love of them figure out why.

"Strange. I remember driving on this very road this morning. We had much more space between our cars then. Have people been buying wider cars or something?"

Jakarta, my magical city, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

My brother's up. That means it's my turn to sleep. Toodles.

Current music: none
Current mood: happy